Fallout:NV A Boone Companion
by Polaris-Polus
Summary: Craig Boone discovers something about his new friend that shakes him to the core
1. Chapter 1

A Boone Companion

By Polaris-Polus

Chapter 1

The noon-time sun made the two enormous statues look like they were crafted of silver rather than the corroded conglomeration of scrap metal sheets they were actually constructed from. They were gigantic and would have been impressive in and of themselves, but the fact that they had been erected atop a towering mountain pass so that they were visible for miles made them even more amazing.

The statues depicted a Desert Ranger from Nevada and an NCR Ranger from the New California Republic shaking hands. They were meant to symbolize the union of those two renown fighting forces into a single powerful army, underlining to everyone who saw them, especially Caesar's Legion, that the NCR was not to be fucked with.

Craig Boone didn't care about the history of the statues, their construction, or the political statement they were intended to make. All he cared about was what they meant to him at that very moment- a hot meal served on real dishes, a bed with a (mostly) clean mattress, and a bar where a man could buy enough hard alcohol to ease his hurts, physical and mental. Best of all was the knowledge that with the Mojave Outpost's entire garrison of NCR troops around them he could actually allow himself the luxury of falling all the way asleep instead of keeping one eye half open and one ear cocked.

He lowered his gaze from the towering statues to look at the Courier walking a few yards ahead of him. He'd been traveling with the man for over four weeks now. The Courier had led them on a meandering zigzag back and forth across the scrubby desert. There seemed no rhyme or reason to the man's course, but somehow it always managed to bring them to just the right place at just the right time for something interesting to be happening. More than once Boone had found himself wondering if the man was guided by some mystical, all-knowing force. It seemed like it sometimes, and there was something different about him, a feeling that the Courier was somehow special; other-worldly.

Despite long days and nights of wandering, numerous pitched battles, and a shitload of encounters with hostile mutant wildlife, Boone had never asked the Courier's name and the Courier had never offered it. He supposed it didn't matter though. It was just the two of them, so a call of, 'hey' or 'yo' served well enough.

Their only other companion was the Courier's weird little flying robot, ED-E, so named because of the numbers on a license plate used to repair a section of damage on its body casing. Normally, Boone didn't much care for 'droids, but Eddy had proven remarkably useful. Not only did it have strong attack protocols and a wicked blaster gun to bring to the fight, but it had amazingly powerful sensors which allowed them to see trouble and prey long before trouble could reach them or prey could run from them.

Boone and the Courier toiled their way up the steep road leading to the pass where the statues marked the entry to the Mojave Outpost compound. The old highway had decayed into crumbling chunks of weathered asphalt and it was heavily choked with the rotting carcasses of numerous cars, trucks, and heavy freight transports. The dead vehicles sat where they'd stopped on that long ago day when atomic fire destroyed the old world in a flash of radioactive Armageddon.

Most of the wrecks had been picked clean by scavengers, but some still had scraps of junk worth taking for the few caps they'd bring in trade. To the south was a wall of rocky escarpments and to the north was a huge expanse of sloped terrain heavily populated by rad-scorpions; from small, quick three-foot scramblers to hulking monstrosities nine feet or more in length, all of them utterly deadly regardless of size.

For the most part the scorps stayed away from the road, but occasionally one would come scuttling off the sand to try to take easy two-legged prey, so when ED-E's sensors registered a red blip onto the Courier's Pip-Boy, both Boone and the Courier stopped and shouldered their rifles. The two men peered through their scopes to assess the level of threat the blip warranted. It was a whumpin' big scorpion, easily in the eight to nine foot range, but it was oblivious to them, slowly wandering across the sand thinking happy rad-scorpion thoughts about whatever happy rad-scorpions thought about.

The Courier's rifle was a highly modified 5.56 varmint rifle he half jokingly called Ratslayer. The caliber was a bit light for heavily armored or large targets, but it was a nimble weapon, with the benefit of an excellent silencer and an extended magazine. The powerful nightvision scope it was equipped with let the Courier put his rounds on target from a distance with great accuracy, daylight or dark.

Boone's weapon was a .308 hunting rifle. It had been with him through a lot of hairy shit and he'd long ago lost track of the number of kills he'd made with it. The gun wasn't much to look at cosmetically; the stock was cracked and repaired with duct tape, the exterior of the barrel was rusty, and no matter how many times he stuck the butt-plate back on, it kept coming loose. But despite outward appearances, it was in perfect condition where it counted- the trigger assembly and receiver, the inside of the barrel, and the scope.

He used to be a professional sniper, a member of the NCR's famous 1st Recon Sniper Battalion, but that was over now. He'd left and tried to make a life outside of the military. He and his former best friend, Manny Vargas, worked as contracted snipers protecting the town of Novac. That too was over; over in a wash of betrayal culminating in the loss of his pregnant wife, Carla. She'd been the only good thing to ever happen to him. With her gone, nothing seemed worthwhile.

Then the Courier had come along and changed everything. The man helped him get revenge on the person who had betrayed him and Carla, and afterwards had asked him to accompany him in his wanderings. Now Boone didn't know what he was. Certainly not a mercenary. Mercs got paid for their work and the Courier had never offered him so much as a single cap as an inducement to follow him around the Mojave wastes. Boone followed him because his gut told him it was the right thing to do.

"You want to take it?" the Courier asked, still staring through his scope at the giant rad-scorpion.  
"Pretty far," Boone replied, likewise following the nasty monster's movements. "Risky going out there to take the poison gland."  
"So we leave the gland."  
"Just be using up bullets for a pointless kill."  
"We can buy more shells at the Outpost and one less mutant arachnid crawling the Wastes is always a good thing."  
"Fine by me," Boone agreed.

He knew what the man was thinking. The Courier might not have been a professionally trained sniper, but he had a sniper's mindset and that mindset said that life was a bore unless you had something in your scope to shoot at.

"I'll take out the stinger," the man said, "and when it rears up, you take the kill shot."  
"Fine by me," Boone repeated.

The Courier exhaled deeply, then took a breath and held it. He squeezed the trigger and his silenced 5.56 made its soft little pffiiitt. The rad-scorp's tail exploded in a spray of gooey venom and it jerked reflexively, raising its huge form off the hot sand and exposing its softer underside. Boone took his shot and the heavy .308 slug smashed easily through the creature's body, killing it instantly.

They lowered their weapons and the Courier grinned at him.

"Blam-blam!" he said with a wink of his silver-gray eye as he gave the sniper a friendly pat on the back. Then he slung Ratslayer over his shoulder and resumed trekking up the hill toward the statues and the Outpost, singing a little tune as he walked.

"Blue moon...you saw me standing alone...without a dream in my heart...without a love of my own..."

Boone followed, wondering for the thousandth time what it was about that guy that made him stand out from all the other nut-jobs wandering the wild wastelands.

The Courier was easy-going, with a flashing smile and a quick laugh. He was given to witty remarks, wise cracks, and good-natured teasing, completely ignoring the fact that Boone had absolutely no sense of humor. He was damn good company on the trail; skilled, personable, and even-tempered. Yet despite his pleasant demeanor, the Courier could be astonishingly coldblooded. The man had no mercy for fiends, raiders, escaped convicts, or Legionaries.

In truth, Boone agreed with that, especially in the case of the Legion, but it was still disconcerting to watch the Courier walk right up to unsuspecting Powder Gangers, draw his .357 revolver, Lucky, and calmly blow their heads apart without so much as a word of warning. One of the convicts had even called him the "Grim-Fuckin'-Reaper".

Maybe he was an angel of death, but that didn't seem precisely right to Boone. It was true the Courier was perfectly at ease with killing and very good at it, but he'd also seen the man engage in acts of genuine kindness and almost inexplicable generosity, like helping those crazy ghouls up at the Repconn Test Site launch their spaceships, or assisting the NCR in getting HELIOS One up and running, or saving two separate groups of hostages from the Legion, all of which were done at great personal risk and with no expectation of reward.

Before they'd left Novac, Boone had heard from Manny, Cliff Briscoe, and other townies that the Courier was on the trail of a New Vegas man who'd shot him in the head and left him for dead in a shallow grave back in Goodsprings. When he'd asked the Courier about it, the man had simply nodded and said that he was going after a bastard in a checkered coat. He intended to make him pay for the mistake of putting a bullet in his skull without having the decency to make sure he was all the way dead before shoveling dirt over him. Strangely, the Courier didn't seem to be much in a hurry to track the asshole down though. When questioned, he'd simply shrugged his strong shoulders and said,

"He and I will cross ways again. It'll happen when it happens."

Boone couldn't understand that. If someone had tried to kill him and left him for dead in some fucking hole, he wouldn't rest until that someone had a gory splatter where his head used to be, but the Courier seemed to believe that fate would see him to his revenge in its own sweet time.

It was early evening by the time they reached the top of the pass and walked under the joined hands of the giant statues. The setting sun had turned the monuments from silver to gold and it was beautiful. They approached the Mojave Outpost. Boone had been through there several times while in the 1st Recon, so he was familiar with the layout of the compound. He had assumed that from the way he'd talked, the Courier had been there before too, but he found himself second guessing that assumption when the man made for the door to the command center rather than the barracks where the bar, trading post, and beds were. There was no reason for two civilians to go to the command center.

They went around the defensive sandbags protecting the door and entered. An NCR officer, a major, was on duty at the main desk. He looked up and a surprised expression came on to his soft-featured face. The Courier raised a hand in greeting and the Major smiled, making a little almost nervous wave in return. It was clear the Major and the Courier knew each other. This made Boone second guess his second guess.

The Courier turned and looked at him and ED-E.  
"You two hang out over there while I go talk to Major Knight. Boone, why don't you give me your rifle."  
"Why?" he demanded, putting his hand protectively on it.  
"Because the Major will do maintenance on it if I ask him to."  
"First off," Boone growled, "no one touches my gun but me, and second, in case you didn't notice, this is an NCR military station. They only fix NCR military equipment, not civvie stuff."  
"I guess we'll see about that," the Courier said with a smug smile.

Leaving the sniper and the robot to wait over in the corner, the Courier approached the main desk. He extended his hand to the Major and the officer took it, but they didn't share a quick, business like shake. Rather, it was a long, steady clasp. The Courier said something to Knight and the NCR man blushed before looking worriedly to where Boone stood and saying something back to the Courier.

Boone wished he was closer so he could hear what they were talking about, but the distance, his hearing loss from repeated exposure to gunfire, and the whirring of Eddy's repulsor motor turned their voices into mushy sounds. The Courier made a dismissive gesture at the scowling sniper and began putting his weapons on the counter. He laid out Ratslayer, his .357 revolver, Lucky, and his Legion trophy machete, Liberator. Despite what the Courier had said, Boone was genuinely surprised when Major Knight began performing maintenance on the weapons.

As the officer worked, the Courier leaned casually on the counter, chatting with him. His expression was open and his smile was even brighter than usual. Knight kept glancing up at him, almost shyly, returning his smiles hesitantly. Boone supposed the guy was nervous that his CO might walk in and find him tuning up some civvie's gear. He wondered what kind of favor the Courier had done for the Major to make him risk getting his ass in a sling over something like that.

Eventually, the officer finished the maintenance and handed the three weapons back. The Courier gave him a fat fistfull of caps in payment. Knight quickly stashed the caps under the counter.

Ah-ha! That was why Knight was so nervous! He had a little black-market repair business going and he didn't want anyone to find out!

As the Major straightened from hiding the metal money, the Courier leaned across the counter and motioned him in conspiratorially close. Knight complied and the two exchanged some hushed and hurried talk before the Courier stepped back and gave him a nod and a wave. The man walked back to where Boone and the robot waited.

"Well boys, what do you say we head over to the barracks, get some hot chow, have a couple shots of whiskey, and rest our tired asses on some real beds for a change?"  
Boone gave him a scowling nod.  
"Fine by me."

As they walked out into the cool night air, the Courier looked over at him and saw that his companion's tanned face was scrunched up even more than usual.  
"Why are you so grumpy? I thought that the chance to have a little rest would put you in a good mood for a change. You do know what a good mood is, right?"  
"I don't like seeing corruption in the NCR."  
"Corruption?"  
"Yeah, that black-market repair racket the Major has going."

The Courier gave him a disapproving look.  
"That isn't corruption or Black-market, Boone. I've done the NCR a lot of good turns, more than you're aware of, and Knight knows that. He's repaying some of those good turns. The money I gave him is to grease the wheels under his less cooperative supply clerks, not for his personal gain."  
"Whatever you say," the sniper grunted.  
"I say that given everything I've done for them, I don't feel bad about using some of the NCR's gun oil, a few cleaning patches, and a blade honer or two. Now let's go have some fun, eh?"

They entered the barracks and approached the bar. The gal who ran the place greeted the Courier with a wry smile.  
"Back around? Just my luck! What'll it be this time?"

The Courier engaged her in some banter as Boone struggled to remember what her name was. Macy?...Gracie?...No! Lacey! Yeah, that was it, Lacey!

After some dickering, the Courier bartered some tin cans, a badly beat-up 9mm pistol, and some fire gecko hides into two meals of squirrel stew with InstaMash and YumYum Deviled Eggs as sides. Dandy Boy Apples served for dessert. This was washed down with Nuclear Moose beer followed by several shots of hard booze which tasted more like flamer fuel than whiskey.

As they ate, the Courier made small talk with a thoroughly drunk female caravanner at the end of the bar. She was rude and foul-mouthed, but the man ignored this. It appeared that they were casually acquainted. Boone wondered if he was hoping to convince her to go for a quick fuck around the back side of the barracks. If so, the man was pissing in the wind with that one. She wasn't the type to hand out her vault passcode for some wasteland wanderer, no matter how handsome and charming he was.

Finally, the Courier decided to call it a night. They left the bar and went into the dormitory where they selected a bunk bed against the far wall.  
"You mind if I take the bottom rack?" the Courier asked.  
"Fine by me," the sniper replied, taking off his armor and stowing it in the footlocker at the end of the bed. He climbed into the upper bunk, taking his .308 and his machete with him.

The Courier removed his armor too, and like Boone, settled down with his weapons close at hand. ED-E stationed itself at the side of the bunk to stand alert guard over its master through the night.

Boone was exhausted and it didn't take him long to fall into a deep sleep despite the snores and movements of the travelers and troopers around him. Unfortunately, his repose didn't last long. The problem with falling into deep sleep was that was where nightmares found you, and Boone had plenty in his past for bad dreams to feed upon.

This time around he was back at Bittersprings, shooting helpless old men, women, and children. He watched their heads pop like over-ripe mutfruit each time he pulled the trigger. He could hear himself laughing and he was appalled. It was wrong. It was horrifying. It was a slaughter, but in his dream he couldn't stop laughing, at least until he pulled the sniper rifle away from his eye and realized all of the murdered corpses were standing before him with their mutilated heads gushing blood and they were reaching for him...

His eyes snapped open and he had to stifle the cry that wanted to crawl out of his constricted throat. Using sniper breathing techniques to calm his racing heart, he finally was able to let the tension out of his muscles. He closed his green eyes again and tried to will himself to go back to sleep, but just when it seemed like he might actually be able to do that, Boone heard the Courier get out of the lower bunk. He remained still, feigning sleep, believing the man was just going to offload some recycled beer in the shitter's urinal, but then he heard the Courier open the footlocker.

The sniper peeked between his lashes and saw the Courier taking out his armor. The man began putting it on. That didn't make any sense. You didn't need to strap-up to go take a piss, at least not there at the Outpost.

For a second Boone considered sitting up and asking what was going on, but something stopped him. He remained motionless, pretending to be asleep while listening to the Courier suit up. Finally the man whispered to ED-E,  
"You stay with Boone. I'll be back in a while."  
The 'droid acknowledged this with an affirmative bleeble and the man hushed it.  
"Shhhh! Don't wake him up. I'll be back before morning."

Boone carefully peeked through slitted eyelids and watched the Courier walk out of the dorm. As soon as the man had gone out, he sat up and jumped off the bunk.  
"Where is he going?" he asked the robot.  
Eddy made a sound that was the auditory equivalent of a shrug.

Scowling hard and wondering what the hell the man was up to sneaking out like that, Boone began putting his own armor on. As soon as he was geared up, he too left the dorm, with ED-E following him. Entering the bar, he looked around, hoping to see the Courier sitting at one of the tables. It was well after midnight and almost no one was there, just Lacey and the drunk caravanner gal. The Courier had left the barracks.

Feeling his concern ratchet up a notch, Boone went out the main doors. Again he hoped to see the man, this time sitting at one of the picnic tables in the compound courtyard, but they were vacant. He looked to the robot which hovered next to him.

"Can you find him?"

It gave a positive bleep and began scooting toward the front gate. Boone followed. For a moment the little 'droid moved toward the chain-link pens where the traveling caravanners kept their loaded pack brahmin and the sniper thought the man might be wanting to talk to some of them, not that it made any sense for him to wake them in the middle of the night for trading or intel on what they'd seen on the trails.

Unfortunately, ED-E kept moving past the pens, leading him to the north side of the Outpost's area, where the steep walls of the mountain rose up. The 'droid skirted along this and around the edge, into the rocky terraces and sandy slopes where the rad-scorpions roamed. Boone's gut clenched up. Why in the fucking hell was the Courier going out there in the middle of the night, all alone!? Worse yet, all he had was that damned little pea-shooter rifle and a fucking 6-shot revolver! Was he trying to get himself killed!?

Boone had his .308 cocked and ready, dreading a foray deep into the dangerous terrain, but determined to find the Courier. Rather than continue further into the scorp's territory, however, the Courier's path turned east and began to parallel the ruined highway they'd come up on their way to the Outpost. Again Boone was baffled. Why would the man choose to risk encountering a rad-scorpion when he could reduce the danger by moving just a few dozen yards over and walking amid the wrecked cars on the highway?

Perhaps a half mile along, ED-E changed their course again and angled toward the highway. Boone hated not being able to figure something out and he stopped walking, forcing his brain to try to work it through. ED-E sensed that he'd come to a halt and returned to him, awaiting his next move or order.

Boone let his sharp eyes flick west, up to the glow of the Mojave Outpost's lights. Suddenly he understood why the Courier had taken that route. The garrison had a sniper post on the roof of the barracks, overlooking the approach to the Outpost. By going to the far north side of the pass, then down into the darkness, the Courier had effectively remained out of the sniper's line of sight. Only when completely clear, had he returned to the highway where the road was in a blind spot.

But why leave the Outpost at all? And without saying a thing to him about it or taking his robot?

"What direction is he going now?" he asked the 'droid.

ED-E swiveled around and pointed itself almost due south. Boone raised his rifle and looked through the scope. It didn't have the powerful nightvision of the Courier's 5.56's scope, but the moon was out and just over half full, so there was enough light for him to see the line of wrecked cars and trucks.

His trained eye quickly spotted motion and a puddle of glowing light. He focused in on it. It was the Courier, illuminating his way with the light on his Pip-Boy. The man was moving toward the hulk of a wrecked transporter. Then the sniper saw more movement. For a brief moment he was afraid it would be a rad-scorp crawling amid the dead vehicles, but it was a person.

Boone moved forward a few yards and reacquired the image in his scope. The person was Major Knight. He was standing by the rear of the abandoned freight hauler. The Courier approached him. He was carrying Ratslayer at the ready, but he lowered the weapon and set it down on the cargo hauler's deck. Knight was also armed, carrying a service rifle, but he too put his weapon down, laying it next to the Courier's varmint rifle.

The two men stood face to face, then the Courier reached out with his left hand, put it around behind Knight's head and pulled the Major forward into a deep kiss.

Boone's stomach lurched and he jerked the scope away from his eye.

He stood there for a long moment, too stunned to do anything except try to convince himself that he hadn't seen what he'd seen. It had to be another bad dream. This couldn't actually be happening.

Slowly, he raised the scope again.

Knight was now on his knees in front of the Courier. He'd gotten the man's armored groin guard off and was sucking the Courier's penis.

Boone turned away, sick to the very bottom of his belly.

The sniper returned to the Outpost with ED-E following him like a strange metal balloon. He went back to the dorm, took off his armor, and laid down on the top bunk. He'd managed to keep his brain away from what he'd witnessed until that moment, locking his mind down tight, but in the quiet stillness of the bed, he couldn't stop himself from thinking about what the Courier was and what he was doing with that bastard Knight. He had the unwanted vision of Knight on his hands and knees in the back of the cargo truck with the Courier fucking him vigorously from behind before that awful thought was replaced by the even worse idea of the Courier lying on his back with his legs spread, inviting the Major to fuck him like a woman.

He wanted to puke.

Boone was still awake, battling those nauseating thoughts when the Courier returned. He forced himself to remain still, pretending to be asleep as he listened to the man remove his armor and crawl back into the lower berth. Soon the man's soft snores drifted up to the upper bunk, but the sniper didn't find sleep again.


	2. Chapter 2

A Boone Companion

Chapter 2

By Polaris-Polus

They left Mojave Outpost the next morning and Boone was glad. He didn't want to be there anymore.

Breakfast had been sheer torture. As he and the Courier ate a meal of iguana bits and Sugar Bombs at the bar, Major Knight had entered. The Major and the Courier had exchanged a very brief look, then both men pretended they didn't know each other well enough to chat. Boone wondered what all those NCR troops and officers eating their meals at the tables and counters would think if they were to find out their Major and the Courier had spent a fair portion of the night slurping each other's cocks and reaming each other's assholes. At best Knight would find himself transferred to some hell hole like Camp Forlorn Hope and at worst he'd get fragged in his own bed. The Courier could very well find himself in some trooper's rifle sights, shot in the back and the incident written off as an accidental weapons discharge.

The two men passed under the statues and made their way down to the highway of vehicle corpses. Boone was scowling and he hadn't done more than grunt in response to anything the Courier had said to him that morning, but being as he was habitually laconic and definitely not a morning person, the Courier didn't seem to notice his foul mood.

When they passed the freight hauler where the Courier and the Major had had their midnight rendezvous, Boone gritted his teeth and forced himself to say the alphabet backwards in his head to keep his mind from thinking about what had gone on in the rear of that truck. The Courier didn't even glance at it.

They crossed the east side of the collapsed overpass and headed toward Nipton Junction, but once again Eddy's sensors picked up trouble. There were multiple red blips very close to the section of highway 164 leading to the town of Nipton. Given their location on the north side of the road and their number, it was a safe bet to guess they would be giant ants. Usually the ants stuck to the dusty Ivanpah Lakebed, but sometimes foraging parties got too close to the road for comfort.

The men and the 'droid moved forward cautiously until they were within scoping distance. Their suppositions had been correct. It was a group of six giant ants; four workers, about three and a half feet in length, and two much larger and more dangerous soldier ants.

"Well, shit," the Courier sighed. "That's the direction we need to go so it looks like we're going to have target practice. Hope you feel like BBQ'd ant meat for lunch."

Ants were quick and could cover ground with amazing speed. It would be crucial to kill them before they could swarm forward, but six was a lot of creepy-crawlers to pop off in a hurry. The Courier's small caliber 5.56 would have a hard time penetrating the thick chitin armor of the two soldier ants, but his Ratslayer had an 8-round extended mag and a slick bolt-action which made it faster to fire than Boone's .308. They agreed that he would target the four smaller workers while Boone concentrated on the two hulking soldiers. ED-E would stand by to catch any that made a charge at them and to make sure more weren't sneaking up from their flanks.

Boone and the Courier crouched down and assumed kneeling shooting positions for greater accuracy. The sniper waited for the other man to start firing first, then he laid into the soldiers. It went pretty well, though it took two shots to kill the second soldier ant and he heard the Courier's varmint rifle spit six times instead of four.

"Had a hell of a time getting that third one," the Courier said, lowering his rifle. "My first shot nicked its antenna and it went into a frenzy. You did great though. I saw that nice thorax shot you made."

He reached over and clapped Boone on the shoulder in friendly fashion, like he'd done dozens of times before, but as soon as his hand contacted the sniper, Boone jerked back and bolted to his feet.  
"Don't fucking touch me!"  
The Courier blinked in surprise and stood up too.  
"Why are you mad at me?"

The anger Boone had been holding in all morning came spewing out like a gush of lava from a volcano.  
"I don't want your filthy fucking faggot hands on me!"  
For a split second the other man gaped at him, before sudden comprehension dawned in his silvery eyes.  
"You followed me last night."  
"Yeah," Boone snarled, "and I saw you and Major Cocksucker all over each other. Fucking disgusting!"

"Why are you so upset about it?" the Courier asked solemnly. "We weren't hurting anyone."  
"That's the kind of shit the Legion does! Men fucking men!"  
"Legionaries do a lot of things. They eat, they sleep, and they take the occasional crap, but I don't see you getting upset when I do any of those things."  
"You're a fucking faggot!"

Sadness turned the Courier's eyes to the color of rainclouds.  
"When I first met you in Novac, I could see how angry and hurt you were. I helped you find the person who betrayed you and Carla, and I helped you take revenge. When it was over, I could tell you didn't have anything left there, so I asked you to come with me. We've shared the hardships of the Wastelands and we've fought side-by-side. I've had your back and you've had mine. From that very first day when we left Novac, I've offered you nothing but respect and friendship, and now you talk to me like this?"

"You should have told me you're a queer!"

"There never seemed to be a very good time to do that, Boone, and besides, I knew you wouldn't like it if you found out so I kept it to myself. I never tried to grab your ass or fondle your cock." Then the man's raincloud eyes went stormy. "Or is that what you're really upset about, that I didn't try to seduce you? That it was Knight I had sex with in the back of that truck instead of you?"

Rage ignited in Boone. He punched the Courier in the face. The man staggered back as ED-E spun around and brought his blaster to bear on the sniper. The little robot played the snippet of music it always trumpeted before going into battle, but the Courier hurriedly called it off.

"No, ED! No! Don't attack him! Stand down!"

Boone had his .308 up and ready to fire at the 'droid, but the Courier moved in front of the sniper's gun. There was blood running down his chin from a bad split in his lip, but he didn't wipe at it. Instead he spoke very calmly but very sadly.

"I'm so sorry, Boone. I never meant for you to get hurt by this and I'm sorry you hate me for what I am. I didn't ask to be this way."  
"Fuck you!"  
"Yeah, well, if that's the way you want it, fuck you too. I think it's time we parted company. Eddy and I are going east, back to Nipton. You can pick any other direction. I wish you well. Be safe and take care of yourself."  
He turned to his 'droid.  
"Come on, ED, let's go."

Without a backward glance, the Courier and his little robot began walking up the cleared highway leading to the Legion-razed town of Nipton.

Anger turned Boone's mind into a blank red curtain. He stormed west, back the way they'd just come. For several long moments he was completely lost to fury as he headed toward the crumbled overpass, but then a jolt of bright paranoia parted his rage-curtain.

What if the Courier had sent him off in another direction in order to put a bit of space between them so he could draw a bead on him with that wicked little 5.56 of his! A quick pull of the trigger and he'd be lying face down on the crumbly asphalt with a hole in the back of his head! He'd seen him kill Powder Gangers like that, so why not him?

Boone instantly scrambled for the only available cover; a rusted section of guard rail still clinging to the side of the road. With his heart racing, he threw himself over it and crouched behind one of the supports.

Carefully keeping as much of his head and body hidden as possible, he put his .308 up onto the rusty rail and looked through the scope with his trigger finger ready to return fire, but instead of seeing the Courier with Ratslayer raised, he saw that the man was still walking up 164 toward Nipton with ED-E floating loyally behind. Then he saw that the Courier was holding his left arm up and the middle finger of that hand was extended. The man knew he was scoping him and was flipping him off!

For a moment the anger returned and Boone actually considered pulling the trigger. It was an easy shot. He could put a bullet into the Courier's skull, and unlike that New Vegas roller in the checkered coat, he'd make sure the man was dead...

But then the anger ebbed back as he remembered the genuine hurt and sadness in the Courier's eyes as he'd turned away.

'...From that very first day when we left Novac, I've offered you nothing but respect and friendship...'

Friendship.

Friends.

They had been friends. Boone didn't know when it had happened, or why, and he sure as hell hadn't wanted it to happen, but somewhere along the line of those weeks of wandering, he and the Courier had become friends. It didn't make any sense to the sniper. The man was his complete opposite in terms of personality.

He was distant and reserved, genuinely disliking having to deal with people, but the Courier seemed to enjoy talking to anyone and everyone about anything and everything. He'd seen the man chat happily with the spunky little cook in Sloan over the proper way to make a deathclaw-egg omelet and he'd watched him discuss the fine points of religious space travel with a glowing ghoul. He'd charmed old lady Gibson into giving him a steep discount on some rocket thrust control modules and convinced the NCR officer in charge of HELIOS One to let him into the most vital areas of the power plant.

The fact that the Courier loved to talk should have irritated Boone, but somehow it didn't. Personally, he took a bit of pride in the fact that if a regular person would say something in five words, he could do it in three, but the Courier never really expected him to add much to a conversation, he'd just carry most of the load himself. Instead of driving him crazy, the talking actually seemed to fill the emptiness of the desert wastes around them. It was nice to listen to the man talk at night when they were sitting around a campfire. His words helped keep the darkness back as much as the flickering flames did. Sometimes they would play Caravan to pass the time and Boone especially enjoyed it when the Courier would read out loud to him from books they found along the way, like the stories of Grognak the Barbarian, or the amusing recollections of the Junktown Jerky Vendor.

And the man's sense of humor. He'd liked that best of all. The Courier always found something funny in even the gravest situation. Like the time that squad of four Legion assassins had attacked them near a mud wallow south of the NCRCF. The wallow had been home to a herd of wild bighorners and the animals hadn't reacted well to all the gunfire. In the mayhem, the massive bighorners had charged the Legion assassins. After all the shooting was over, the bighorners and the Legionaries were dead. Boone and the Courier began looting the assassins' bodies, taking weapons, food, armor, and ammo, but they couldn't find the last guy. Then the Courier had started laughing. Indeed, the man was laughing so hard he actually had to lean against a rock to keep from falling over.

"I found him!" he'd finally managed to say, pointing at a foot protruding from beneath the front legs of the largest bighorner bull.

It was clear from the positioning of the bodies that the Legion assassin's head was located somewhere in the region of the Bighorner's hind end.

"Now that's the way all Legionaires should go to eternity!" the Courier had said. "With their heads up bighorner asses!"

And Boone had actually laughed. For the first time in years he'd laughed and it had felt good.

But now there he was with his rifle aimed at the Courier's back and his finger on the trigger. With Carla dead and his bridges with Manny Vargas hopelessly burned, the Courier had been his only friend in the whole world and now he was seriously thinking about killing him.

Boone pulled the .308 off the rail and slumped back against the rusty support. He'd lost everything. Part of him wanted to blame the Courier, after all this was his fault. He was the faggot! But he knew deep inside his aching heart that the problem wasn't with the strange, other-worldly man, it was with him. He was the one who was fucked up.

His eyes felt like they were burning and his vision blurred. He slammed his head back against the guard rail several times until the hurt drove the tears away and he was left hollowed out and hopeless.

He was the one who was fucked up.

There was only one thing to do that would solve that problem.

Boone placed the butt of his .308 on the ground between his feet and positioned the open end of the barrel under his chin. His hand slid down the duct-taped stock to the trigger. It felt awkward for it to be backward. It was easier to put his thumb through the loop of the trigger guard than his finger. He closed his eyes, exhaled and took a breath, holding it just like he did when making any other shot, but there was virtually no chance he'd miss with this one. Then he tried to pull the trigger.

But he couldn't.

It was as if Private Arm and Corporal Hand had turned rebellious and were refusing orders from Colonel Brain. He grunted and mentally tried to convince his troops that it wasn't going to hurt and that it would all be over quickly, but it wasn't the fear of pain or the fear of ending that was holding them and him back. It was something else...That same sort of deep-gut feeling he'd gotten when the Courier had asked him to travel with him.

Groaning in dismay, Boone pulled his hand away from the trigger and let his still-intact head flop back against the guard rail. It made a metallic gonk. He might have been done with life, but it was not done with him. The trouble was he didn't know what to do or where to go. He sure as hell couldn't keep sitting there against that rusty rail for very much longer. Eventually the remaining giant ants crawling the lakebed would sense him and come looking for a taste of people-meat. He couldn't go back to live in Novac. No, that place was too full of pain. Re-upping with the 1st Recon was not an option, not after what happened at Bittersprings. There was no fucking way he was going to belly-crawl back to the Courier like a whipped dog with his tail between his legs. That would be too humiliating.

So what the fuck was he supposed to do? Bumble his way around the Mojave like a drifter, slowly going mad the way No-Bark Noonan had when too many rad-scorp stings penetrated his head?

But what if he could go back to the Courier...just not ALL the way back?

What if he sort of followed at a distance, you know, just to keep an eye on things, make sure the man didn't run into too much trouble? He could do that!

Boone got up and moved east on the 164, trailing the Courier at a careful distance. He knew ED-E's sensors would pick him up, but he also knew he would register on the Courier's Pip-Boy as a yellow, non-threatening blip, at least now that he was no longer planning on killing him.

When he'd first learned of the robot's sensor system, he had asked the Courier how the 'droid knew when something or someone was a danger and when it wasn't. The man had given a long explanation about risk calculation algorithms and biometric scans detecting physiological hormone levels and a bunch of other sciency stuff that the sniper had pretended to understand, but in truth he still had no idea how it worked. What he did know was that the Courier tended to ignore yellow blips that were behind him, generally assuming they were crows and ravens coming in to pick the carcasses he left in his wake with almost unbelievable regularity.

The sniper made sure to keep as much cover between himself and the Courier as possible, using the abandoned billboards along the road, the ruins of Nipton Pit Stop, and clumps of rocks, just in case the man decided to scope his six. It wasn't hard to do this and move fast, his 1st Recon training serving him very well. The real difficulty lay in making sure nothing was sneaking up on his own ass. It was amazing how quickly he'd gotten used to relying on ED-E's sensors and without them he felt more than half blind. There were plenty of bad things roaming the Wastelands and the area around Nipton was crawling with eight-legged, six-legged and four-legged dangers, but it was the two-legged ones that worried him most. Not only were there Jackal Gangs in the vicinity, but by destroying Nipton, the Legion had made it clear this area was within their strike zone.

Sunset was rapidly approaching by the time the Courier was walking through the fluttering Legion conquest banners marking the entry to the razed town. Boone had been hanging about 500 yards back, but he hurried to close the gap. The numerous buildings would effectively hide him from the other man and he wanted to be close just in case there was trouble waiting.

In many ways Nipton was more dangerous than the open road. Not only were there deadly giant bark scorpions hanging around the trailer park, and the possibility of Jackal raiders and Legion patrols, but enough time had gone by since the town's destruction that word might have reached the ears of any number of prospectors.

In the old days, the word 'prospector' used to mean someone who searched for deposits of gold and silver in the ground, but now it meant people who scavenged through abandoned and ruined buildings and vaults looking for anything they could sell for a few caps. Mostly that meant scrap metal and electronics, empty glass bottles, and maybe some tools, but every prospector dreamed of finding some amazing piece of long-lost tech, like a powerful one-of-a-kind plasma weapon, or a cache of thousands of bottle caps which would make them rich. The idea of looting an entire town like Nipton would draw prospectors from the far reaches of the Mojave and some of those prospectors might not be too keen on sharing their claim. They'd think nothing of attacking a lone walker like the Courier and if there was more than one working together, they could be a genuine threat to the man.

Moving from covered position to covered position, the sniper was finally able to get a clear line of sight on the Courier. The man was walking up the middle of the street with his .357, Lucky, drawn. The revolver would be better suited for the sort of close encounters a town environment was likely to bring than the varmint rifle. It also had the advantage of better stopping power.

Just as he was about to reach the place where Nipton's main east-west street crossed the central north-south one, the Courier suddenly stopped and ducked back behind the corner of the town's trading post. He peeked carefully around the building. Obviously, Eddy had alerted him to something. The man holstered Lucky and unslung Ratslayer. Whatever it was he had his eye on, it was clearly far enough away to warrant a sniper-style attack.

Boone tensed, ready to rush in and join the fight if necessary, but the Courier took two quick shots, one right after the other, then stood up and reslung the rifle over his shoulder. He began walking up the north-south street toward the town hall and his easy movements told Boone that whatever the threat had been, it was now neutralized.

He hurried forward and peeked around the trading post from the same position the Courier had just used. He could now see what had happened. On the steps of the Nipton town hall were two dead mongrel dogs; Legion war hounds either intentionally or accidentally left behind by those skirt-wearing faggot-fucks. The Courier went to his kills and skillfully skinned them before cutting off the meat from their rear haunches. The hides would be worth a few caps in trade and dog meat wasn't half bad when prepared right.

By the time he finished with the dogs, the sun was below the backside of the mountains and the twilight was dimming everything with a haze of purple. The Courier took his hides and meat and went into one of the abandoned houses. Boone figured he was probably going to spend the night there, as it was dangerous to travel after dark without having an extra gun-hand with him.

Soon lights came on inside the house. The Legion had cut power to the town, but the Courier had probably found some fission battery lanterns or good, old-fashioned oil lamps. Unlike most places in the Wastelands, many of the houses in Nipton still had glass in their windows, though more often than not the panes were cracked or broken. Boone could easily make out the Courier's movement through those imperfect windows.

The sniper changed position, hiding in the ruins of a destroyed building across from the house so he could see the dwelling's front door. After a while the smell of cooking meat began wafting out from the broken windows. Boone's mouth watered. That was another nice thing being friends with the Courier had brought; the man was an excellent cook. The aroma of the meat carried with it hints of jalapenos, banana yucca, and honey mesquite pods.

Boone hadn't had much appetite at breakfast because he was so upset and the lunch of BBQ'd ant meat hadn't happened, so his belly was very empty. He rummaged in his pack and discovered that his food stocks were limited to a raw potato, a box of irradiated gumdrops, and a single bottle of Sunset Sarsaparilla. He hated the taste of sarsaparilla, the last thing he needed was to pack a few more rads into his body, and gnawing a raw potato was no substitute for a juicy medium-rare dog steak with all the fixings.

As if he needed one more reason to regret having followed the Courier to his midnight fuck-session...

If he had just minded his own business he'd be in that house right now, sitting down to a good supper while they listened to Mr. New Vegas on the Courier's Pip-Boy radio and maybe played some cards, but the man had ruined everything by being a damned queer!

Boone angrily bit a hunk off his potato and masticated it like a giant mole rat chewing a baseball. Why the hell would any man want to fuck another guy when there were women in the world? Women were soft in all the right places and their breasts were magical things- big-n-bouncy or small and perky, it didn't matter, boobs were great. And pussies! Well, they were the best of all! Nothing beat pounding into a receptive vagina with a double handful of tits for dessert!

The sniper tried to imagine having sex with a man. Men were tough and lean; all muscles and no softness. No boobs, just firm pecs with little knobby nipples. Where was the fun in that? And penises! Dicks were ugly meat sticks! Sure it was nice to have one of his own, but dealing with someone else's? No thanks! Then there was the whole asshole-fucking thing. That was just wrong on so many levels! How could that possibly feel good for either party?

Of course there was always blowjobs. That was one thing where it wouldn't matter if it was a guy or a gal giving it. In fact, a guy might even be a bit better at it because he'd know what felt good to another man.

Boone had a mental image of the Courier dropping to his knees in front of him and wrapping his mouth around his erection as his fingers curled around his balls and squeezed with just the right amount of pressure. He'd grab the sides of the man's head and thrust into his mouth. Women didn't tend to like that, Carla certainly hadn't, but he could skull-fuck the Courier and the man would take it...

Suddenly he blinked and jerked himself out of that thought, almost choking on a chunk of potato. His cock was hard and he felt flushed all over.

Fuck! What was he doing thinking things like that? And getting turned on by them! No-no-no! He was not gonna go down that road!

Throwing the nub of potato away into the gathering darkness, he huddled up in the corner of the ruins and spent a long, uncomfortable night.


	3. Chapter 3

A Boone Companion

Chapter 3

By Polaris-Polus

For the next two days Boone followed the Courier at a discreet distance. Twice he came close to revealing himself when the Courier got into a couple of sticky situations.

The first incident happened just east of Nipton. Highway 164 led through a narrow canyon cutting across the spine of high hills which divided the middle of the Mojave Wasteland. It was a natural ambush point and Viper Gang raiders often set up attack parties along the upper edge of the canyon to waylay hapless travelers. But the Courier had been through there before and he was aware of the situation. Even if he hadn't been, the man was too smart to allow himself to get caught in such a position.

The Courier had toiled his way up the steep terrain to the north and come around to ambush the ambushers, but unfortunately, there was more than one group of Vipers in the area and as the man sniped at the raiders on the rock wall, the second group attacked from his rear. Boone had been within a heartbeat of intervening, but Eddy had done a fine job of protecting the Courier's ass while the man dealt with the first set of Vipers.

When all was said and done, six raiders were dead and an unknown number had fled to the south. The Courier looted the bodies and there was clearly so much stuff that he couldn't carry it all. The man concentrated on high-value items like weapons, ammo, chems, and stimpaks. After he'd departed the scene, Boone had gone to check the bodies. He was delighted to discover that the Courier had left behind a great deal of food. The sniper was pretty damned hungry by that time and he was happy to fill up on crispy squirrel bits, some iguana-on-a-stick, a tin of Cram, and a fresh pear. Best of all, there was a bottle of Nuka-cola. Nuka and whiskey was Boone's drink of choice and even without the alcohol, Nuka was good. Way better than that Sunset shit.

The second close call for the Courier came after the man left Wolfhorn Ranch and turned north off 164 to the road that ran parallel to I-95. The man had come to the abandoned ranch in the late afternoon and Boone thought he was going to spend the night there, as it was the only safe place for many hours in any direction. Traveling that section of the Mojave at night was highly unadvisable, even for groups let alone for one guy and a 'droid. The next nearest safe haven was the NCR Ranger Station Charlie, but even at a double-quick pace with no distractions or incidents along the way, the Courier couldn't hope to reach it before sometime in the small hours of the morning. Despite knowing all that, the Courier had only stayed at the Wolfhorn long enough to pick some of the coyote tobacco chew and maize that continued to grow there after the departure of the ranch's mysterious owner, then he headed north.

This decision did not make Boone happy at all and had he been traveling with the Courier instead of shadowing him, he would have made sure to express that unhappiness in no uncertain terms, but he couldn't abandon the man now, so he continued to follow.

Everything went well until the sun went down and the night devoured the Wasteland. Aware that there were lots of Legion patrols to the east, the Courier was traveling just off the west side of the road, about half way between the decaying pavement and the looming wall of rocky escarpments. The terrain was rolling and Boone had a hard time keeping line-of-sight on the man. Just about midnight, the sniper's trailing course had him at the bottom of a hill with the Courier on the other side of it. Just as he was about to start climbing, Boone saw flashes of red light from ED-E's blaster and heard the heavy bang of the Courier's .357.

His heart lurched in his chest and he began lunging up the hill. If the Courier was using Lucky, that meant whatever was attacking him was up close and seconds might count, but when the sniper crested the top of the hill he was dismayed to see a thrust of rock between him and the battle taking place below. He had to run up along the small ridge to find a good line of sight so he could start shooting, but by the time he'd cleared the rocks and brought his .308's scope up to his eye, the fight was over.

The Courier and Eddy were in the middle of a shitload of dead night stalkers. The deadly half-coyote, half-rattlesnake creatures must have had a den in a cave along the escarpment. That would have kept ED-E from detecting them with his scanner until it was too late. Boone could see that the Courier was bloodied from a number of bites, but it didn't appear that he'd gotten any venom hits. The wounds were bad enough, however, to make him resort to a couple of stimpaks. The medi-injectors sped up a body's natural healing rates and juiced the system with some sort of chemically stuff to help with pain and hold off shock. The stimpaks gave the Courier enough strength to move out of the dangerous area, but it was clear that he was exhausted and unable to continue on to Station Charlie, so he and Eddy hunkered down against the base of an old billboard to wait for the dawn. Boone took his own hunker against some rocks a few hundred yards away.

It was a miserable night for both men and neither really slept well, just dozing in fits and starts. When morning came, Boone could see through his scope that the Courier was stiff and a little limpy, but given that night stalkers ranked pretty high on the list of the Mojave's most dangerous creatures, he'd gotten off cheap.

Moving at a much slower pace than usual, the Courier began heading north again toward Station Charlie. Boone resumed his shadowing position. He knew that as they neared the Ranger station, he was going to have to be doubly careful. Not only would he need to worry about the Courier spotting him, but the NCR soldiers as well. The last thing he wanted was for one of their spotters to inform the man that someone was tailing him.

As they neared the camp, the sniper made a change in tactics. He briefly angled away from the Courier and ascended into the hills on the east side of the road. It was a bit dangerous to sky-line himself if there were Legionaries in the valley on the other side, but he stayed as low as he could and moved fast. By jogging, he was able to outflank the Courier and reach the area of Charlie Station just ahead of the other man.

Boone found a secure observation spot on the jut of rock overlooking the NCR post and the flat-bottomed draw traversing the ridge of hills. He raised his scope and scanned the camp. It was located in a walled compound with a single cement building surrounded by nine long, pre-war trailers arranged in stacks to provide housing and look-out perches. The sniper didn't have much time to scope the camp, because the Courier arrived only a moment or two later.

The man walked through the sandbag reinforced gate and went to the command center in the building. Boone took the opportunity to finish looking Station Charlie over. He was surprised that he didn't see any movement. There were a dozen Rangers posted there. Given that it was just before noon, at least a few soldiers should have been moving around, but he saw nothing. Maybe they were at mess or something? Still, there should have been sentries...

Then he heard the muffled sound of a gunshot followed almost instantaneously by an explosion. Only his 1st Recon training kept him from jolting to his feet in alarm.

What the hell was going on down there!?

Had the Courier attacked or been attacked by the soldiers in the command center? The man was well known to the NCR in the area and well-liked, so something drastic had to have happened!

Boone waited to hear more weapon's fire, straining his eye through the scope, but there was only silence and motionlessness.

Then the Courier and his robot came out of the building. Boone felt a flush of relief that the man was ok and uninjured, but he still couldn't understand what had happened. The Courier made a sudden lunge for the sandbags around the front gate as full-auto gunfire erupted from the little draw below the rock perch Boone crouched on. The sniper startled and jerked his eye away from his scope.

Caesar's Legion!

He'd been so focused on the Courier's movements in the camp that he hadn't noticed a squad of Legionaries rushing up the draw from the east. While inside the building, ED-E's scanners had been useless to inform his master of the impending ambush and the man was pinned down by the heavy fire.

A sort of switch flicked inside of Boone's head, the switch that shut down everything but his training. Surprise, fear, worry, concern; all that went away. He was in battle and he was a machine.

Boone reshouldered his .308 and started killing.

The Legionaries were fully concentrating on blasting the Courier's position and completely unaware that there was a sniper overlooking their rear. Boone took out three men before any of them realized they were being fired upon from above and behind. There was confusion and the Courier started popping away with Ratslayer from behind the sandbags, killing three more of the skirt-wearing fucks. ED-E was not programmed to seek cover and it zipped forward into the fray, blaring its battle song and blazing away with its blaster.

This was obviously not how the Legion squad had expected things to go and they started to retreat, firing their 9mm and 10mm SMGs in all three directions, but the weapons were very inaccurate and as they ran back up the draw, the distance made their shots even less likely to hit. Boone and the Courier used their superior rifles to continue to inflict damage with surgical precision. By the time the Legionaries reached the rocks and got out of range, only three men out of fifteen were still alive. Boone doubted they would stop running until they reached the banks of the Colorado River.

He stood up and took several slow, deep breaths. This was not to calm himself. Indeed, he was perfectly calm. What he was trying to do was shake off the numbness that sought to consume him whenever he killed human beings.

By the time that feeling of non-feeling had retreated, the Courier had come out from behind the sandbags and walked a few dozen yards forward. The man was looking up at him. He looked back. The Courier raised his hand. Boone wasn't sure if the gesture was meant as a greeting or as thanks for his assistance. Either way, he didn't return it. He just stood there, motionless as a hunk of rock.

The Courier called ED-E over from where the 'droid was alertly scanning in the direction the beaten Legionaries had gone. The robot quickly came to hover in front of its master. Boone watched as the man spoke to the 'droid for a moment or two, then Eddy spun about and began flying up and around the rocks, ascending to where the sniper stood in implacable stillness. It positioned itself in front of him and there was a buzzing sound followed by a recording of the Courier's voice.

"Hey, thanks for saving my ass. I was in some deep serious there. Looks like the Legion overran the camp. Everyone is dead inside. There are booby-traps everywhere. I set one off so I could get into the back room to check for...I dunno...somebody alive maybe. Dumb, I know. Anyway, we should report this back to Ranger Andy in Novac...So, uh, you want to travel together again? It would beat following me in the shadows."

Boone clamped down hard on the thing in his chest that wanted to be grateful for the invitation and to rush down the rocks to rejoin the man. How would that look? It would make him look like a fucking dog falling all over itself in eagerness to be back with its owner. He spoke frostily to the 'droid.

"Record this: I killed those Legionaries because that's what I like to do, not to help you out, and just because I'm going the same direction you are doesn't mean I'm following you and it sure as hell doesn't mean I want to keep company with you, so fuck off, faggot. End of recording. Take that back to him."

ED-E returned to his master and Boone watched as the man listened to the recording. The Courier sagged and Boone knew the harsh words had hurt the man badly. The Courier turned away and began walking back to the road to Novac.


	4. Chapter 4

A Boone Companion

Chapter 4

By Polaris-Polus

They made Novac early that evening. Boone was still following several hundred yards behind the Courier, but he was no longer bothering to hide himself.

Only a few minutes separated them as they entered the gate of the Dino Dee-Lite Motel. After the Courier had assisted the town in stopping the attacks by demented nightkin and feral ghouls from the Repconn site, he'd been given a room at the motel for as long as he wanted it in thanks. But the man didn't immediately go to his room. Instead, he went across to the bungalows on the other side of the parking area to tell retired NCR Ranger Andy about the massacre at Ranger Station Charlie. He was still standing in Andy's doorway when Boone entered the courtyard. They pretended not to see each other.

Boone too had a room at the motel, the one he'd once shared with Carla, the room she'd been abducted from by Legion slavers. He hadn't been in it since he'd left Novac with the Courier over a month ago and he was reluctant to go back inside. He didn't want to smell the lingering perfume on Carla's clothes or face the lingering memories he'd be overwhelmed with when he looked at the bed where they'd made love and where she'd conceived his child...a child that would never be born. There wasn't much choice though, lack of sleep was taking its toll on him and he badly needed to rest somewhere safe.

Hesitantly, he put his key in the lock and opened the door. All of his and Carla's belongings were still there. He was surprised to find that Cliff Briscoe hadn't rented the room out in his month-long absence.

He heard the trod of the Courier's heavy boots on the stairs as the man went up to his room on the second floor, then there was the sound of a door shutting.

For a long time Boone just stood there in his doorway trying to figure out what to do. The same crappy choices he'd been faced with two days ago at the Nipton Junction remained in place. For a brief moment he considered heading all the way up to New Vegas, maybe hiring on as a merc with the Crimson Caravan Company or as muscle for the Van Graffs at the Silver Rush, but he quickly squashed that idea. If he went to New Vegas he'd forever be looking for something he'd never find again. Everywhere he turned he'd be looking for Carla. New Vegas was where he'd met her and where they'd fallen in love. Going back there would be inviting endless torment which could only end in the bottle or a bullet or possibly both.

No. Fate, or God, or karma had brought the Courier and he was becoming convinced he was doomed to follow the man to the bitter end of whatever weird quest he was on. He didn't have to like it and he sure as hell didn't have to be butt-buddies with the man, but he had to keep following. It was the only way.

Not wanting the Courier to slip out of Novac while he slept, Boone went out of his room and found the townie that habitually hung around the motel parking lot. He paid the man twenty caps to watch the Courier's door and to come tell him if the man left. He also made sure to threaten the townie with a very painful death if he let the Courier slip past him, underlining his menacing words by drawing his razor-sharp machete. That seemed to get the importance of the assignment across to the man and he swore he'd keep sharp watch.

Boone went back to his room, bathed, ate a salisbury steak, and knocked back three Nukas-and-whiskey, then he laid down to go to sleep. He didn't lie on the bed though. He hadn't slept in it since he'd come back from Cottonwood Cove. Instead, he did what he'd done ever since that horrible time; he pulled the blankets and pillows off the bed and curled up on the floor.

Sleep came easy and it came deep, but as expected there were nightmares. Rather than being about the slaughter at Bittersprings or about Carla being dragged naked and terrified before dozens of Legion slavers, it was about the Courier.

The man was just standing silent and motionless in front of him. Boone couldn't seem to see anything else around them, it was as if the world was an indistinct blur and the only thing clear and in focus was the Courier. The Courier was looking at him with those silver-gray eyes, eyes that used to dance and glitter. But they were sad eyes now and they were sad because he was yelling at the man, calling him a fucking faggot, a cock-sucking queer, a limp-wristed ass-licker. The pain seemed to fill the Courier's eyes up like rainwater filling up a pail until almost overflowing, but rather than let the pain spill over as tears, the man reached up and pulled his eyes out of their sockets, like removing a couple of light bulbs. The holes left behind weren't bloody, just black and empty.

The Courier put his eyes into his pocket and walked away. Boone felt a rising anxiety as he realized he was alone in the blur. Nothing in the world was in focus. How could he survive if he couldn't see clearly? He was a sniper. Snipers needed their eyes. How could he see danger coming? How could he defend himself?

Panic wanted to grab him, but the sound of knocking at his door jerked him out of the nightmare. He sat up, his hand automatically seeking his machete. The knock came again, more insistent this time.

Big blade in hand, he went to the door and opened it. It was the townie.

"That Courier guy just left," the man said excitedly. "He came out of his room and walked down here. I pretended to be sleeping over by the old car. He looked through the boards of your window, real sneaky like. I thought he was going to go in and maybe murder you, but then he just turned around and left the motel."

Boone's green eyes flicked up to the sky. It was still dark. The moon was down toward the horizon though, and in the east the velvet black of night was fading out to a deep blue that hinted at approaching dawn. It was probably close to 4:30am.

"Did you see which way he went?" the sniper asked.  
"Yeah, he turned right. I got up and peeked around the corner of the building. He was going past No-Bark's shack, heading out of town. Maybe going down to Gibson Scrapyard or HELIOS One, or maybe all the way to Boulder City, who knows. So do I get a reward for telling you this?"  
The townie held his hands out in expectation of more caps, but Boone glowered at him and raised the machete.  
"Yeah, you get a reward. You get to keep all your fingers."  
The townie jerked his hands back and quickly retreated.

Boone went back into his room and hurriedly geared up. He grabbed what little food remained, collected a stash of ammo for his hunting rifle, and moved toward the door, but as he was about to go out, he stopped and looked back at the room. Something told him this was the last time he'd ever be in it.

"Good bye, Carla," he whispered, then he shut the door for good.

The sniper left Novac at a jog. Despite the approach of dawn, it was still very dark, especially with the moon all the way down. He was worried that he'd lose the Courier. If he lost the man, there would be little chance he'd ever find him again.

Of course the obvious direction for the Courier to take would be to cut across to the I-95 and head north, but doing the obvious thing wasn't generally the man's habit. He could just as easily swing west, ducking behind Gibson Scrapyard and HELIOS One to brave the dangers of Scorpion Gulch, or he could turn east, heading cross-country toward the Southern Nevada Windfarm before angling for Camp Forlorn Hope or Ranger Station Delta. There were rumors of an abandoned vault on the other side of the El Dorado Lakebed and the Courier had spoken of wanting to explore any vaults they came across.

Then of course there was Boulder City to the northeast. The Courier had mentioned that the New Vegas man in the checkered coat who had tried to kill him was rumored to have gone to Boulder City. Maybe the Courier was finally going to get serious about taking his revenge on him. Hell, the tricky bastard might even have guessed the sniper had a watch on him at the motel and he'd doubled back as soon as he was out of sight of the town, heading back south.

There were just too many damned choices. Boone knew he needed to get sight of the Courier as soon as possible. North was still the most likely option so he went that direction. He would run a few hundred yards, then stop and do a 360 degree sweep with his rifle scope before running forward again and repeating the scan. He would have traded his left nut for the Courier's Ratslayer. The varmint rifle's nightvision scope would have been a huge help.

Dawn came and went, but the daylight didn't reveal any sign of the Courier and Boone was getting seriously worried that he'd lost him, but just as he was starting to consider turning around and trying another direction, he spotted the man.

The Courier was standing on a little rise overlooking the expanse of El Dorado Dry Lake. He was scanning the area with Ratslayer's scope as ED-E hovered alertly at his shoulder. Boone ran forward another hundred yards and was finally able to see what the Courier was watching. The dusty lakebed was crawling with giant ants, and not just regular old giant ants like the ones at Nipton Junction, but giant fire ants! Not good things to tangle with at close quarters, but the Courier could quite easily snipe them from his position with little risk, though it might take numerous shots for the 5.56 to kill the huge soldier ants.

Boone really expected the man to start killing the ants, mostly because the Courier had a thing about destroying any hostile mutant wildlife, but also because giant fire ants sometimes carried a spicy sweet nectar that was a very valuable trade item. The man didn't start picking the critters off though. He simply lowered his rifle, cut over to the other side of the I-95 and gave the lakebed and the ants a wide berth.

Slightly surprised by this, Boone too crossed over and began following. He was pretty sure ED-E's sensors had informed the Courier that he was once again being shadowed, but the man didn't turn back to look. Instead, he continued north, moving at a steady, purposeful pace.

As noon approached, Boone saw the form of an old Poseidon gas station up ahead on the right-hand side of the highway. The Courier was clearly making for it, but a few hundred yards from the station, the man suddenly stopped and went into a stealthy crouch. ED-E had to have picked up some sort of danger. The Courier had his rifle shouldered and was focusing on a billboard just kitty-corner from the station. The Courier fired two shots, then stood and jogged toward the billboard. Boone picked up his pace and followed until he was able to see what had happened through his .308's scope.

Two dead Viper Gangers lay in the dirt. Obviously they were waiting to ambush travelers on the I-95, but neither had had a clue that they would find themselves in the sights of a man with no qualms about ridding the world of raiders. They never even knew what hit them. It was a nice bit of work.

Boone watched through his scope as the man looted the bodies. When he was finished, he stood and started to go toward the gas station again, but then he stopped and looked back up the highway, right in Boone's direction. If the sniper had had any doubt about his presence being detected, that look erased it. He hoped the Courier was good and pissed! Trying to sneak off without him! Ha! Did he really think he was that stupid?

As if sensing his smug triumph, the Courier turned sharply on his heels and resumed walking toward the gas station with his shadow firmly in place.

The El Dorado Gas & Service station was still quite intact structurally and it had clearly been serving as the Viper's hideout for at least a couple of days. The Courier examined the remains of their bed mats and campfire before going into the service station's office. The office wasn't very big and Boone expected the man to come back out fairly quickly, but he didn't. Several long moments passed, more moments than it should have taken for the Courier to scrounge through any junk which remained in the place.

Then an awful thought came to the sniper.

What if the service station had a rear door?

If there was a backdoor, the Courier might easily slip out it and disappear into the rocky terrain to the east. Without a Pip-Boy or a robot's sensors, Boone wouldn't be able to locate him and there was a pretty fair chance that if the man tried to intentionally elude him in that fashion, he'd be able to do it. In fact, he might already have a fair head start for a game of hide-n-seek! He knew how smart the Courier was and how sneaky he could be. That was just the sort of slick move the man would pull, but he'd show him once again that he wasn't dealing with an idiot!

Staying about three hundred yards out, Boone circled around the rear of the station, hoping to outflank the Courier if he'd already made a run for it. He got a line of sight on the back of the building and instantly felt like a fool. There was no rear door or even a window.

Well, shit!

Grunting, he slung his rifle so he could move faster as he hurried to resume his position around the front, but as he turned, he heard a weird buzzing sound, not the same sort of buzz that ED-E's repulsors made, but a lower more powerful one. Boone spun around, trying to unsling and shoulder his .308, but there was a sudden flashing flutter of bright orange and iridescent black.

The cazadors were on him so quickly that he didn't have time to aim his weapon, he was forced to shoot from the hip. The .308 boomed twice, but the enormous mutant wasps were too fast and too close. He dropped the rifle and drew his machete, slashing the creatures with it, as the first stings hit him. It was like being stabbed with red-hot knives. The sniper hacked at the wasps, cutting three of them in half in mid-air, but there were at least half a dozen more and they were swarming him.

Then the venom hit. His vision went blurry and his muscles stopped functioning the way they should. He felt like he was on fire. The sky tilted and the ground seemed to rise up to smack into him. The cazadors landed on his sprawled form and kept stinging. Boone tried to flail with the machete, but it was useless and a great rush of flaming blackness took him.


	5. Chapter 5

A Boone Companion

Chapter 5

By Polaris-Polus

Boone woke up vomiting. Everything hurt. He'd never been in so much physical pain in his life.

"Boone, you have to drink this. Try to keep it down."

Bitter liquid was in his mouth. His only choice was to swallow or choke on it. He swallowed, but almost instantly puked again.

"Dammit! C'mon, Boone, try again!"

More bitter liquid. He swallowed. The pain was turning him inside out and he struggled against it, yelling and cursing, but someone held him down.

"It's ok! You're safe, Boone. Take it easy...Boone?"

But the sniper had fallen back into unconsciousness.

When he woke up again he wasn't actively puking, but he sure felt like he wanted to. The nausea was a rolling, rocking sensation that threatened to make him heave his guts again. His mind took a long time to come back into focus, as if he had to fight up through sticky muck. Dully, he took stock of himself.

Under the nausea was low, feverish pain and his joints felt like they'd each been hit with a supersledge. His skull was pounding. Distantly, he heard himself moan.

"Are you awake? Boone, tell me you're awake!"  
"...Mmmwake..."  
"Thank god! Here, drink this."  
"...Uhhh-uhhh...tastes bad..."  
"It's not antivenom this time. It's Nuka-cola. You like Nuka."

A strong arm helped raise him up just enough that he could drink from the bottle. The effervescent soda helped push back the sickness and woke his brain up a little bit more. He opened his puffy eyes. It was dark out and the only illumination was flickering firelight reflecting off cement walls and ceiling. He didn't know where he was.

"...Where?..." he mumbled.  
"We're still at the gas station, in the service bay."

It dawned on him that it was the Courier who was there with him.  
"...What happened..."  
"You stumbled into a cazador nest, you big dummy," the man said, laying him back onto the bedroll. "I was in the office with Eddy. There was a Sunset Star bottle cap on the counter. I accidentally dropped it and it fell down between the floorboards. I was trying to fish it out when I heard your rifle go off. I'd know the sound of that gun anywhere. By the time ED-E and I got out there, the cazadors were all over you. Scared the hell out of me. I thought you were dead!"  
"...wish I was..." the sniper groaned miserably.

"You're going to be ok. I picked off all of the cazadors around you, but that whole area back there is swarming. I grabbed you by the shoulder straps on your armor and dragged you back here, then I gave you some stimpaks and as much antivenom as you could keep down."  
"My gun..."  
"I grabbed that too, but I had to leave everything else. Here, drink some more Nuka."

The man tried to help him sit up again, but Boone tensed when he touched him and the Courier pulled back.  
"Oh. Sorry. Just trying to help." He put the cola bottle into the sniper's hand. "I guess you can manage on your own now."  
The Courier stood up.  
"Think you can eat something?"  
"Yeah," Boone grunted, taking a drink of the Nuka.  
"Good. There was some BlamCo Mac & Cheese on a shelf in the office. I'll go make some. Eddy, keep an eye on him, ok?"

The 'droid beeped affirmatively and dropped down to hover more closely next to the sniper as his master went out of the bay and over to the fire. Boone drank the rest of the Nuka-cola and laid back down, trying to will the remaining queasiness to go away.

After a while the Courier returned with the food. He handed it to him on a dented and battered tin plate with a bent spoon, then took a seat against one of the service bay's concrete walls. The man didn't say anything until Boone had finished eating and put the plate down, then he looked carefully over at him.

"Feel better now?"  
"Yeah, a little."  
"Boone, why do you keep following me?"  
"I have to."  
"No you don't. You don't owe me anything."  
"It's not because I owe you. It's not because I like it or because I want to. It's because I have to."  
"I don't understand."  
"My gut is telling me to follow you," the sniper said gravely. "My gut is always right. The one time I didn't listen to it something really bad happened, so now when it says follow, I follow."

Slowly the Courier nodded.  
"So you're not gonna stop?"  
"Nope."  
"Ok. Then we need to do something, because this trailing me at a distance thing isn't working out so well. It's dangerous."  
"Yeah."  
"I know you don't really want to be around me, but maybe we could travel together again if I were to promise not to do or say anything that might piss you off and if you could maybe try to pretend you don't know that I'm a faggot."  
"Fine by me."

The two men and the 'droid left the service station the next morning. Boone felt a lot better by that time, though his joints didn't really loosen up until almost noon and the vague nausea clung on until evening. They made a risky foray back to where the cazadors had attacked to retrieve the sniper's pack and machete, relying on ED-E's sensors and some very careful sneaking to avoid riling the deadly wasps up again, then they headed out to Boulder City.

Boulder City was pretty much nothing but a pile of ruins, some abandoned buildings, a single functioning saloon, and a garrison of NCR troopers. The Courier used his innate charm and powers of persuasion to peacefully resolve a dangerous hostage situation there. Some Great Khans had two NCR soldiers captive and were holed up in the central ruins. The Courier managed to convince the NCR officer in charge to let him negotiate a truce. Boone was sure the situation would turn bloody, quite probably while they were right in the middle of it, but to his surprise, the Khans surrendered their hostages and the NCR honored its end of the bargain by letting the Khans go free, but only after the Courier came right out and told the officer in charge that he'd be a dick to go back on his word.

In the process of talking to the Khans, the Courier got a vital bit of information about the man in the checkered coat who had tried to kill him back in Goodsprings. The ranking Khan, Jessup, told him the man was named Benny, and that he was some big toss connected to the Tops Casino in New Vegas. Jessup gave the Courier Benny's lighter with the invitation for the man to shove it up Benny's ass when he found him.

After leaving Boulder City, Boone and the Courier explored the area north, along the shore of Lake Mead. There were some nasty monsters there called lakelurks that made things rather exciting a time or two, then their meandering course dropped back to the southwest where they stopped in at the 188 Trading post. A strange little boy living under the overpass told the Courier's fortune, claiming to be able to see his past, his present, and his future. Boone didn't buy any of that shit. It all sounded like a bunch of made-up nonsense. The kid's last bit sort of made him uneasy though.

"...Forecast: a rain of blood will flood the desert and not purify it..."

From the 188, they continued west on highway 160 and after another run-in with Legion assassins, they'd prospected the old Repconn Headquarters building. There the Courier showed an astounding knowledge of computers and robotics which left Boone feeling about as smart as a dried out brahmin turd in comparison. There was quite a bit of loot there though, most particularly a really weird energy weapon that had to be worth thousands of caps. Personally, Boone didn't trust energy weapons, preferring good old fashioned projectile guns. Energy weapons had too much that could go wrong with them, but a trusty .308 could be counted on.

From there it was decided to go back up the I-15 toward Sloan, so they set out for the junction. It had been a week exactly since he and the Courier had rejoined forces and things should have been just dandy; after all, they were back to the meandering, adventure-filled kind of ramble they'd enjoyed before things fell apart at the Mojave Outpost.

But things weren't dandy. Not at all.

Everything was different and it sucked.

The Courier no longer talked to him the way he used to. There was no light chatter, no joking around, and no teasing. In fact, the man only said things that had to do with their immediate situation. At night when they sat around the campfire, there was silence. The Courier didn't read to him from the books and magazines they found, he didn't play his Pip-Boy radio, and he didn't offer a game of Caravan to pass the time. Boone was very aware that the man intentionally kept at least three feet between them if at all possible and there were no more friendly pats on the back or chummy nudges. But the worst thing of all was the way the Courier no longer looked at him. The man wouldn't meet his gaze, even when talking to him.

They might have been traveling together, but to Boone it felt like they were a thousand miles apart and he hated it.

A dozen times or more he was on the verge of telling the man he was sorry for saying the things he had, but he just couldn't do it. It was the Courier who'd ruined everything, not him. Why should he be feeling guilty? He was angry and confused, but one thing was for sure, he didn't need a faggot for a friend, so fuck him. They were just traveling companions, that was all, and there was no need for stupid fucking jokes and meaningless chitchat.

Boone knew he was lying to himself, but what other choice did he have?

His mind was chewing this over as they trekked toward the rail station that marked the turn from the 160 onto the I-15, but then the Courier stopped and raised his Pip-Boy.

"Eddy's picking something up."  
"Like what?"  
"Single blip," the man said, studying the personal information processor's screen.  
"Any idea what it might be?"  
"No. I haven't been through this area before. At least not that I remember."  
"What do you mean by that?"  
"Getting shot in the head tends to make you lose a few bits and pieces."  
"Great..."

The Courier lowered his arm and unslung his varmint rifle. Boone followed suit with his .308. They both looked through their scopes, trying to ascertain what the blip was, but they couldn't get a clear line of sight due to the rail station building and a number of large rock piles.

"We're gonna have to get closer," the man said.  
"Just one blip, right?" Boone asked.  
"Yeah."

They moved forward cautiously, but the unknown blip was moving too, still hidden behind the rocks. The Courier and the sniper advanced past the rail station and angled toward the I-15, pausing to scope every couple of yards.

"I just can't get a line on it," the Courier said.  
"Keep looking."

A few more yards in ED-E suddenly trumpeted its battle music and zipped forward, its attack protocols rendering it aggressive in the face of what it clearly assessed as a significant threat. That's when the Courier made a sudden cry.

"Oh shit! DEATHCLAW!"

Boone's blood instantly ran cold. On the list of deadly and dangerous creatures roaming the Mojave that you absolutely did NOT want to fuck with, deathclaws were in the number one slot and the only prudent action to take when coming across one was very, very rapid retreat.

"RUN!"

He and the Courier began fleeing back toward the rail station building, but the deathclaw was coming at them fast. ED-E was blasting at it, but the only thing the bolts of red energy seemed to do was piss it off more. It swatted the little robot out of the air, sending it crashing into some rocks. Boone knew deathclaws couldn't climb, so he zigged right and desperately tried to get up onto the ledges of rock edging the open area on the southeast side of the station. He heard the Courier's .357 bang half a dozen times in rapid succession and his heart turned to ice. The revolver only had six shots and it was time consuming as hell to reload. That left the man with just the dinky little 5.56! He might as well throw pebbles at the thing!

Pulling himself up onto the rocks, he whipped his .308 off his shoulder and hurried to get the deathclaw in his sights. What he saw through the scope scared the holy fuck out of him. The Courier had the weird energy weapon they'd found at Repconn. He'd forgotten all about that! The man activated it with the deathclaw only feet away from him. The plasma rifle fired a wad of green energy at the beast and it howled in pain.

Boone began shooting, his rounds impacting the deathclaw forcefully, but it was fully focused on the Courier. Before the man could fire the energy weapon again, the creature struck him with both sets of elongated talons. The Courier was thrown violently backward, out of Boone's view behind the train platform.

The sniper fired again, trying to get the monster to turn away from the Courier, but suddenly Eddy was there. The little 'droid looked wobbly, but its aim was still good. When its blaster fire hit the deathclaw in the back, the monster spun around, ready to rip it to pieces, but then Boone saw his moment. The thing's mouth was wide open in a bellow of rage and he sent a bullet smashing right into it. The slug tore through the rear of the deathclaw's throat and blew out its spine just below the skull. It collapsed into a big heap of dead ugliness.

Lowering the rifle, Boone stood up. He wanted to yell the other man's name, but he didn't even know what the hell it was, so he shouted the only thing he could think of,  
"COURIER!...COURIER!"

He really did expect the man to come staggering out from behind the building; battered, yes, bloodied, most certainly, but up and moving. That didn't happen though.

"COURIER!"

Having made certain the deathclaw was dead and that there were no other threats, ED-E went behind the station where its master had been thrown. There was a hollow feeling in Boone's belly, like someone had scooped out his guts and tossed them away. He slung his rifle and began clambering off the rocks as fast as he could. So great was his anxiety that he actually fell the last little bit and had to scramble back up to his feet.

He ran around to the platform side of the station and came to a stop as if he'd run right into an invisible wall.

The Courier lay in a crumple at the base of one of the platform supports. The deathclaw's blow had sent him smashing into the beam and there was blood splattered across it. More blood turned the yellowish sand around his body a dark red. Eddy was hovering over him making alarmed bleebles as if begging the man to sit up.

The paralysis that had momentarily gripped Boone released and he rushed to the fallen man's side.

It was bad.  
Really, really bad.

Then his military field medical training kicked in. He had to stop the bleeding. The wounds visible through the badly damaged armor were massive. It was going to take a whole lot more than a little baggie of healing powder and a stimpak or two. Boone tore open his pack and yanked out the super-stimpack he kept at the bottom for extreme emergencies. That and three regular stimpaks got the bleeding under control, but then he realized the Courier had stopped breathing. He ripped off the Courier's mangled chest armor and started CPR.

Don't let him die!  
Don't let him die!

Don't.  
Let.  
Him.  
Die!

Boone didn't believe in divine intervention, especially after Bittersprings and Cottonwood Cove, so he wasn't praying to any deity. He was ordering himself; demanding it of himself. He hadn't been able to save the Khan women and children and he hadn't been able to save Carla, so he had to save the Courier. He HAD to!

The Courier's body jerked underneath his hands and the man gasped in air.  
His heart was beating! He was breathing!

The sniper sagged back, feeling half sick and half relieved. He realized he was panting and he had to force himself to get a grip and take control of the situation.

Prioritize!

It was dangerous where they were. Where there was one deathclaw there were more. He had to get the Courier someplace safe.

"Eddy! We need to get out of here," he said, looking up at the robot. "We need someplace safe!"

The 'droid turned around in a circle, scanning with its terrain sensors rather than its threat sensors. It beeped and pointed northwest.

"Ok. I need you to carry his pack and our guns."

ED-E gave a permissive bleeble and he quickly hung his .308, Ratslayer, and the pack off the extensions protruding from its round, ball-like body. It looked really strange, but the robot's repulsors were quite strong and it managed the extra weight with little trouble despite the knocking about it had just taken. The weird Repconn energy gun was in pieces a few feet away, but Lucky was intact, so Boone stuffed the revolver into his hip strap. With the gear gathered, the sniper wrestled the Courier's limp form up onto his shoulders, so that the man was draped across him. The Courier wasn't a small guy and it took a lot of effort to stand up, but Boone managed it.

"Let's go," he said to Eddy.

With the droid leading the way, they moved out in the direction it had indicated.

Boone was used to the heat of the Mojave and generally it didn't bother him, but carrying the Courier's unconscious body under those circumstances while fearing attack from any and every angle soon had him sweating and breathing hard. Up ahead in the distance he could see what looked like farm houses and he was pretty sure that's where ED-E was leading him. He just wished they were closer. Boone was growing concerned that the Courier hadn't so much as twitched or groaned. He needed to get him laid down, get the rest of his damaged armor off, and give him a really good assessment to make sure the stimpaks had done their jobs.

Eddy suddenly stopped, turned around and moved to block him while making a series of beeps and trills that he didn't know how to interpret.

"I don't understand you," he said, wondering how the Courier always seemed to know what the robot's sounds meant.

The droid played the snippet of battle music it blared whenever going into a fight, but it did it very softly and Boone wondered if that meant it was trying to tell him there was trouble ahead.

"You sensing something?"  
An affirmative beep.

Laboriously, the sniper lowered the Courier to the ground and took the man's left arm, angling it so he could see the screen of his Pip-Boy. The small computer had come through the deathclaw strike with little damage, though there was blood spattered across the display. Despite that, Boone could make out two red pips. Their direction seemed to indicate they were in the immediate vicinity of the house Eddy was leading them to.

"Great..."

Ok, if the pips were so close to the house it probably meant they were humans...probably...and the fact that there were only two meant it wasn't another Legion assassination team...probably...Odds were they were raiders using the house as a hideout and ambush point on the 160...Probably...

Time for the new landlords to evict the old tenants.

Boone started to reach for his .308 dangling off one of Eddy's spikes, but then he changed his mind and took Ratslayer instead. It was a silenced weapon and it had a much better scope than his hunting rifle. He didn't want to risk this sneak attack going wrong and the 5.56 would give him a better chance of making the kills quickly and quietly. Varmint rifle in hand, he looked back at ED-E.

"Stay with him. I'll be right back."

The sniper moved forward carefully in a low crouch. There wasn't much in the way of cover and he was relying on the fact that the late morning sun with its blinding glare was behind him. He finally reached scoping distance of the house. He raised the rifle and took a good look. He was really impressed with how clear and bright the image in Ratslayer's reticle was. No wonder the Courier was able to make such nice distance shots! Sweeping the scope across the front of the house he finally saw the cause of the blips; two Powder Gangers were sitting on a cart sharing a bottle of scotch.

While it was surprising to see Powders that far north, Boone was actually very relieved. This was gonna be easy! He hoped that scotch was good stuff because it was the last thing either convict was going to taste other than lead. He turned his mental numbness switch on, crouched, and controlled his breathing. The 5.56 had an easy trigger and when it fired there was almost no kick.

The Powder Ganger on the left toppled backward off the cart as the bullet smacked right between his eyes. Boone watched through the scope as his drinking buddy started to laugh, figuring his friend had just lost his balance due to too much scotch. The convict leaned over and looked down at his pal. Shock blanked his face as he saw the bloody bullet hole. If the man had been a trained soldier, he would have ducked for cover, but Boone knew he was dealing with a low-life civvie scum and the man did just what he expected him to; he stood up straight and looked in the direction he knew the shot had to have come from. Boone drilled him right between the eyes too.

Leaving his numbness switch engaged, the sniper slung the rifle and drew his machete. There might be more Powders inside the house and he needed to make sure his eviction was thorough before he brought the wounded Courier in. Fortunately, the building was empty and he quickly returned to where Eddy hovered over its master's still form.

With a grunt of effort, Boone got the Courier onto his back again and carried him quickly to the house. There was a large bed in the back room and he laid the man on it.

He began stripping off the damaged armor. The badly torn grayish T-shirt underneath was sodden with coagulating blood so he took that off too. The stimpaks seemed to have done a good job of healing the wounds, but Boone knew they worked by forcing a body's natural healing abilities into ultra high gear and that was really hard on a person's system.

Given that the Courier's heart had stopped for at least a couple of minutes, Boone was really, really worried the man might never recover. The thought that he'd never wake up made the sniper feel sick in a way that was a dozen times worse than the cazador venom had been. He realized dully that he was feeling that wrenching emotion even though he hadn't consciously flipped his numbness switch back off. Somehow seeing the Courier in such a state had overridden it. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do but wait.

Boone got a pan from the farm house kitchen and filled it with water, which he heated on the stove. Bringing the water back to the bedroom, he dipped an old bandana in it and washed as much of the blood off the Courier's body as possible. As he cleaned the man's face, he found himself being especially gentle. Even expressionless as it was in unconsciousness and with those silver eyes closed, it was a kind face.

A killer with a kind face...only in the Wastelands.

After the man was cleaned and made as comfortable as possible, Boone stationed ED-E outside the house to keep watch, then he ate what had presumably been the Powder Gangers' intended lunch; a brahmin steak.

When he was finished, he rolled over the chair from the desk and put it beside the bed. He sat in it and tried to let the tension out of his body and mind, but it just seemed beyond him because a terrible thought had occurred to him. If the Courier didn't wake up he would once again be faced with putting a bullet into the head of someone close to him. His eyes looked over to where Lucky lay on the desk. The revolver held six shots, but if the worst happened, he would only need two.

He looked at the Courier.  
"You can wake up anytime now...the sooner the better. You have to wake up...You woke up after being shot in the head and buried alive, so a little deathclaw strike isn't going to stop you, is it...It can't stop you. You won't let it."


	6. Chapter 6

A Boone Companion

Chapter 6

By Polaris-Polus

Movement near Boone woke him up from where he dozed in the chair beside the bed. It was dark outside, but he'd found an oil lamp before settling in to rest and had left it burning on the desk. The lamp's cheery yellow glow showed him the one thing he'd wanted to see more than anything else in the whole world; the Courier sitting up in bed.

"Hey!" Boone said, relief washing over him in a warm rush. "How do you feel?"  
"...terrible..."  
"Not a big surprise."

Suddenly the Courier seemed to remember what had happened and alarm flashed across his face.  
"The deathclaw!"  
"It's ok," Boone soothed. "It's dead and we're safe."  
"Where's Eddy?"  
"Outside keeping watch."  
The man's silver eyes flashed around the room.  
"Where are we?"  
"In a farm house northwest of the rail station. I had to convince a couple Powder Gangers to let us move in."

Calmed by the sniper's words, the Courier relaxed, but he grimaced when he tried to swallow.  
"I'm thirsty."  
"Oh! Sure!" Boone said, standing up. "There's some Sunset in the kitchen. I'll go get you one."

He fetched one of the sarsaparillas from a crate on the floor of the kitchen, popped the cap on the edge of the counter, and brought it to the Courier. The man had moved to sit on the side of the bed, but he looked weak and he was holding his head like it hurt.

"Here," the sniper said, giving him the soda.

The man took it and drained the bottle in several very deep glugs that showed how dehydrated he was. A belch and a sigh followed, then the Courier looked sideways at him in a brief glance that didn't reach his eyes.

"Are you ok?" he asked.  
"I'm fine," Boone replied, sitting back down in the chair. "Deathclaw never even scratched me. I might be a big dummy for stirring up that cazador nest, but you're an even bigger one for thinking you can outrun a deathclaw. You have to climb where they can't get you! Any idiot knows that!"

He made himself chuckle as he said it, hoping that the teasing would show the man that he wanted things to go back to the way they had been, but the Courier was grim.

"I thought it killed me."  
"I thought it killed you too...I had to inject you with a bunch of stimpaks. You stopped breathing for a little bit...scared the shit out of me."  
"You saved my life," the man said very solemnly and Boone's attempt at levity evaporated in a flash of anger.  
"Of course I saved your fucking life! You think I've been following you just to watch you die!?"  
"I dunno...maybe."  
"Fuck you, man!"

Boone snatched the empty sarsaparilla bottle out of the Courier's hands and moved angrily toward the door.  
"Get some sleep. I'll be out on the couch."

In the living room, the sniper threw the soda bottle into the corner and himself onto the battered, slightly stinky sofa.

Fucking prick!

Did he really think he'd gone through all this; following him in a ramble through hell, living like a fucking drifter, putting his life on the line every day, just so he could be there when fate finally cacked the bastard? If he wanted that, he'd have killed him himself and gotten a front row seat!  
Son of a bitch!

He fell asleep angry and wasn't in a much better mood come morning. Scowling and wishing he had something to kick, Boone went into the kitchen and made extra fancy Pork n' Beans, the extra fancy part meaning that he actually heated them up in a pan on the stove rather than just eating them cold out of the can.

As he was stirring the beany glop the Courier came into the kitchen in his skivvies. Boone looked sourly over at him.  
"You shouldn't be up."  
"I feel lots better," the man said, carefully keeping his eyes on the bean pot and not the sniper stirring it. "That smells really good."  
"Go sit down on the couch. I'll bring you some in when it's ready."  
"Thanks."

Not wanting to deal with more dirties than was absolutely necessary, Boone put half the beans on a plate for the Courier and left his half in the pot. He carried the food out to the living room along with two Sunset Sarsaparillas, though he would rather have drunk bottled bighorner piss. The Courier was sitting on the sofa with his head down as if studying the tattered, filthy carpet. He didn't look up as the sniper entered.

"Here," Boone said, thrusting the plate at him.  
The man took it without raising his eyes.  
"Thank you."

The sniper sat down on the other end of the couch and they ate in silence. Boone didn't really taste his food. He was too busy being angry and miserable because he was coming to realize life was never going to get any better than it was at that moment- eating 204 year-old pork n' beans in a filthy abandoned house with a fucking asshole who liked asshole fucking.

The Courier finished his beans and set the plate on the ugly little coffee table that was the room's only other piece of furniture. He let out a long sigh as he stared at the far wall.

"Boone, I'm sorry for what I said last night."  
"Sure," the other man grunted, tossing his mostly empty pot on the floor.  
"No, really, I am sorry. I know you don't stay with me because you hope to see me die."  
"Yeah, you're so fucking sorry that you won't even look at me when you say it."

The man lowered his head.  
"I can't look at you, Boone," he whispered.  
"Why the fuck not? Can't stand to see my ugly fuckin' face anymore?"  
"No...If I look at you, you'll see how much I love you."

Boone shook his head dazedly.  
"You love me?"  
"From the very first day I met you up in that stupid fucking dinosaur's mouth."

The sniper really didn't know what to say to that. He just sat there like a pulse grenade had gone off next to him, rendering him stunned and paralyzed. The Courier kept talking with his head down and his hands clenching together.

"I knew you didn't go that way though, so I kept my mouth shut. I figured just being with you would be enough and for a while that seemed to work. Things were pretty good between us, weren't they? But the human body has needs. It needs to eat and sleep and sometimes it needs to feel the touch of another person. I knew I couldn't dare to ask that of you, so I went to Major Knight. I didn't want you to know, but you followed me. I figured you would be upset and angry if you ever found out, but I really didn't think you would hate me the way you do."

Boone watched as a tear fell from the Courier's eye like a single crystal drop of rainwater.

Something was happening. It was beyond his abilities to figure out. He only knew one thing for sure; what true love looked like, because he'd seen it before.

"Look at me," he said.  
The Courier didn't move, keeping his head down as another tear fell from his eyes.  
Boone reached out and took the man's head firmly between his hands, forcing it up, but the Courier kept his gaze lowered.  
"Look at me!" the sniper demanded.  
Slowly the Courier looked at him.

And there it was- true love; deep and pure in silver eyes wet with raindrop tears.

Boone knew he had two choices. He could turn away from that love and leave it to wither and die for no other reason than it was in the eyes of another man instead of a woman. Or he could just get over the idea that a pair of dicks were involved and count himself blessed that not just one person had looked at him like that in his life, but two. It was way more than most people ever got.

He made his choice.

The sniper leaned forward and kissed the Courier.

The man jerked back. Clearly, he had expected a punch in the nose, not a kiss on the mouth and Boone took a certain degree of satisfaction in having surprised him that thoroughly. The Courier wasn't usually one to be dumbfounded.

"Boone..." he said in a shaken voice.  
"Just shut up and let me get used to this."

He kissed him again and this time the man accepted it.

Kissing the Courier wasn't like kissing a woman. There was much less softness and much less feeling of surrender to a stronger power. In fact, it was more like a peace treaty between two equally powerful armies. There were still a few items in that treaty that needed to be worked out though and Boone pulled his mouth away from the Courier's.

"Uh, listen, this isn't something I ever expected to find myself doing and I, um, well, I'm not sure how far I want this to go."

The man looked at him with eyes now dry of tears and once again as bright and shiny as silver.

"Boone, I'd never force you to do anything you didn't want to do."  
"As if you could!" the sniper snorted with a little irritation.  
"What I meant was I don't expect you to do anything that you're uncomfortable with. I just need to know one thing; is there any chance that maybe someday you might fall in love with me too?"  
"Y'know I used to think you were the smartest person I'd ever met, but now I'm starting to wonder."  
"Does that mean you love me?"  
"Yeah, I suppose I do, as fucked up as that sounds."

The Courier smiled and it was beautiful, but then it turned coy.  
"So, uh, how far do you maybe think you might want things to go?"  
"Let's get one thing clear, I'm not a dick-in-my-ass kind of guy."  
"Didn't figure you for one. Fortunately, I am."

That was a bit more than Boone was ready to process at the moment and things were moving entirely too fast in his opinion.

"Look, um, we'll get to that eventually...maybe...but for now let's just keep things simple, ok?"  
"Simple like a blowjob? I've been told I give really good ones."  
"Told by who?" Boone growled. "Knight?"  
"Wow, jealousy!"  
"Let's get another thing straight, if it's gonna be you and me, it's gonna be JUST you and me, not you, me, and anyone else you wanna fuck."  
"Monogamy it is then."  
"Damn right," the sniper scowled. "No one touches my guns but me."

Another big smile from the Courier, this one full of heat.  
"Well, I do hope you'll be doing a lot of gun-touching. What do you say we go back into the bedroom and finish working out the fine points of this partnership?"  
"You sure you're up for that? This time yesterday you were dead for all intents and purposes."  
"I'm not dead now," the Courier said, standing up and holding his hand out to the sniper. "In fact, I feel more alive than I have since I was pulled out of that grave in Goodsprings."

Boone let himself be hauled up off the couch and into the bedroom, trying very hard not to look at the erection stretching the front of the Courier's briefs. They stopped next to the bed, and the man kissed him this time; a passionate, hungry kiss that lit Boone's nerves up and made his cock go hard too. Then the Courier stepped back and gave him another of those sparkling-eyed smiles of his.

"You do know that armor's gotta come off, right?"

Not wanting to look like he was afraid, the sniper unstrapped, tossing his gear into a pile next to the desk. Then he took off his T-shirt and underwear. The Courier looked at his muscular nude form and made an appreciative whistle through his teeth.

"Ain't that a kick in the head! Anyone ever tell you you're sexy as hell?"  
Boone's face tightened up.  
"Yeah."  
The Courier realized his mistake and his own expression became very gentle.  
"She'd want you to be happy, Boone."  
"But like this? With another guy?"

The Courier placed a kind hand on the side of his face.  
"I know I never had a chance to meet her, but it seems to me that Carla had to have been a damned smart woman if she picked you as her man. And if that's the case, then I believe if she knew someone would come along who loved you as much as she did, she wouldn't be mad, even if that someone was a guy. She'd be glad for you."  
Boone pulled the man into his arms and held him very tightly.

They stood that way for a long moment, then the Courier gently stepped back.  
"Now where were we? Oh yeah, blowjobs and how good I am at them."

He very slowly went to his knees in front of the sniper, running his hands down Boone's chest and belly before curling them around to cup his ass, urging his hips forward.

The sight of the Courier looking up at him from that position made Boone's cock surge back into a full erection. The mental image he'd had back in Nipton of skull-fucking the man flared up just as hot and hard as his penis. The Courier, with his other-worldly ways, seemed to know exactly what he was thinking and he opened his mouth, indicating his willingness to have it stuffed with penis.

Boone gripped his head between his strong hands and thrust his thick organ between his lips. The man took it without difficulty, relaxing his jaw and his throat so the sniper was free to fuck his mouth.

It felt good...really, really good...and Boone knew there was no hope of lasting long. He hadn't had any kind of sex in months so he had a hair trigger. All it took was the thought of yanking his cock out of the man's mouth and spewing his load across his face to do it. He ejaculated in a fast spasmic rush, pumping his semen down the Courier's throat, then he pulled back and staggered against the desk, panting.

The Courier used the back of his hand to wipe his wet mouth.  
"Anybody ever tell you sex isn't a race?"  
"Hey, asshole, you got your clip changed back at the Mojave Outpost, so fuck you!"  
"I wish," the other man grunted, getting up and pulling his briefs off to reveal a proud 8-inch erection.

Slowly he began to stroke himself as Boone watched. His big, calloused hand moved up and down on his shaft, then squeezed out a thick ooze of pre-cum from his slit.

"You gonna make me jerk myself off or are you gonna help me out with this?"

Boone realized that the blowjob hadn't come anywhere near satisfying him and the sight of the Courier fisting himself fanned his inner furnace back to full blast.

"I want to fuck you."

The other man's eyebrows went up as dumbfoundedness hit him twice in a single day.  
"I thought you weren't sure how far you wanted to go."  
"I wasn't sure in the living room, but I'm sure now, so turn around."  
"At least let me find some lube!"  
"I got your lube right here," the sniper said, spitting into his hand.  
"Oh, I see how this is gonna go..."

Boone used his dry hand to grab the Courier above the elbow, yank him around, and shove him face down onto the bed. The man didn't resist and he even spread his legs a little. The sniper shoved his spit-covered fingers between the Courier's ass cheeks, smearing the saliva over his hole before thrusting two fingers into his anus. The man let out a howl and writhed.

"Ah! You sonuvabitch!"

His asshole was a tight, clenching band around the sniper's fingers, completely different from a woman's pussy. He was hot inside and Boone knew it was going to feel good to stuff his cock into that hole.

Pulling his hand out of the Courier's ass, he spit into it again and covered his straining cock with the slippery saliva, noting as he did so that the Courier wasn't trying to roll over or twist away.

He moved up between the man's legs, using his knees to push them further apart, then he grabbed the man's wrists and twisted his arms up behind his back. The Courier grunted, but still didn't struggle. Instead he said,

"Give it to me! Fuck me hard!"

And Boone did, ramming his cock into the man's tight anus so brutally that a cry was wrenched from him. He sank deep, pulled all the way out and slammed in again to the root. Giving in to the more aggressive animal instincts in himself, Boone fucked the Courier savagely as a massive feeling of building pressure filled him. Beneath him the other man's body suddenly clamped down hard on his impaling cock and he cried out,

"I'm cumming! Fuck the cum out of me!"

The pressure in Boone's groin exploded into a violent orgasm and he bellowed as he pumped his load deep into the Courier's ass, then everything crumpled into a gooey meltdown as if he'd been shot with a plasma round. He collapsed down on top of the Courier, panting and sweaty. For a moment the man allowed him to rest, but finally he grunted and said,

"Boone, you're breaking my arms."

The sniper groaned in protest at having to move so soon after such a massive orgasm, but he rolled off the man, his softening penis slipping wetly out of his battered, cum-soaked hole. Flopping onto his back he stared up at the ceiling and just let the post-ejaculation peace wash over him. Obviously, he'd been wrong about ass-fucking not possibly feeling good.

The Courier rolled over to face him.  
"That was the best fuck I've ever had."  
Boone looked over at him.  
"Better than Major Knight's?"  
"Knight wouldn't have the guts to flip me over, pin me down, and fuck me that hard."  
"And you like it like that?"  
"Yeah, I like it like that...So what do you say we head out to New Vegas tomorrow and have a talk with a guy in a checkered coat?"  
"Fine by me."

THE END


End file.
